Stretched Fibers
by mimirshead
Summary: Sometimes Sirius was the light that lit Grimmauld, and sometimes he was the dark that swallowed it, and Regulus never knew which he would be when.


Sirius wasn't there when Regulus woke up. It was just him and the ever present darkness of Grimmauld Place closing in on the edges of his vision. He sat up in bed, and looked around to try and see his brother, but there was nothing in the room.

A light balanced on the tip of his wand did nothing to aid in his finding of Sirius, and only pushed the dark back by a portion.

Regulus was a Black. He knew how to appreciate a lack of light. Corners far from the sun suited them. The school dungeons held them tight like a mother's arms. He had grown up with that knowledge. But there were moments like this, where the dark was nothing but fear and uncertainty.

"A pure blood should never be afraid," his mother had once told him, while tucking him into bed. "For he should know that out of all the powerful, and terrible creatures in the world, he is the most powerful, and the most terrible."

Sirius had probably been the one to take that to heart. Sirius was never afraid. Regulus found himself hiding often, though. Regulus was the coward child.

He swung his legs out of his brother's bed, feet impacting with the cold floor gently, and sending shivers violently up his legs. Kreacher was wandering around somewhere, maybe sleeping in the kitchen. It was a comforting thought, because Kreacher kept monsters away.

He found Sirius sitting on the roof by chance when he looked out the window on his way down the hall. His brother was dressed in white. White pajama pants, with a white dressing robe over them, and for a moment, Regulus worried that what he was seeing was a ghost, but Sirius' hair was still black.

Regulus was scared as he stepped out the window, and onto the viciously slanted tiles outside. His slippers slipped against the dewy slickness, alerting Sirius to his approach.

"What are you doing up?" the older boy asked as the light on the tip of Regulus' wand spluttered, and died.

"Looking for you."

"Why?"

"You were gone."

"What, were you worried?" Sirius asked, standing up with a foot on either side of one of the roof's peaks. "I'm a teenager. I can take care of myself."

Sirius was all of thirteen, and willful in a way no one else had ever been. Or so Regulus thought. Regulus was still only twelve.

"I can take care of you, too," Regulus offered stubbornly. Sometimes he liked to play at being made of the same bull headed material as his brother. It was all rubbish though, and they both knew it.

Regulus drew his second foot all the way out of the window, and stood planted there, tall, and proud. The way a Black should stand. He looked nearly a mirror of his brother. Both of them having their clothes, and hair whipped about by the cold wind.

"Go back inside, Regulus," Sirius said.

"Why are you out here?"

"It doesn't matter," Sirius said defiantly.

"Why?"

"Bellatrix is coming tomorrow."

Regulus didn't understand, but his brother said a lot of things that he didn't understand. "Does that mean Andromeda too?" Regulus asked, because that was what seemed pertinent to him. He liked Andromeda.

Sirius' face screwed up angrily. His fists balled at his sides, and his clothes seemed to take on a life of their own, moving against the wind as his hair lifted a bit off his scalp. Regulus' breath seized up in his throat. Sirius was mad.

Sirius had taken after their mother in his temper, and his looks. He got angry in explosive, and inexplicable ways that only found places to make sense within the walls of his own mind.

"Go back to bed, Regulus," Sirius said again.

Regulus nodded, and slipped back through the window into the hallway. It was lonely. Sirius was somewhere far away, and untouchable, and he would never be able to reach his brother. It was strange. Sometimes Sirius was the light that lit Grimmauld, and sometimes he was the dark that swallowed it, and Regulus never knew which he would be when.

So he did as he was told, and he went back to bed, crawling into the mountainous arms of the blankets, and pretending that just because he could smell his brother, he was there. Somewhere beyond his knowing. The part that lit the world up, and laughed easily, and never had a care. The part that Regulus envied because it didn't know fear, or pain.

It was so easy to love Sirius. It was so easy that sometimes Regulus forgot that he wasn't supposed to.

On nights like these though, he never could seem to remember.


End file.
